Coming Home for Christmas by Marie Ferrarella Page B

resignation.
    * * *
    Keith had assumed that he could just remain on the sidelines, hidden in plain sight, so to speak. That way, he didn’t have to get involved in any of the conversations that were going on all around him.
    Or so he thought, only to discover he was sadly mistaken.
    There was no such thing as standing on the sidelines when it came to Kenzie’s family. He found himself engulfed in warm voices, had questions directed at him that rang with genuine interest and was on the receiving end of amusing stories to the extent that he quickly discovered he didn’t even know which way to turn or whose question to answer first.
    He also discovered that there was no place to hide. Even more surprising, he didn’t really want to, at least not all that much.
    To his relief, Kenzie came to his rescue when he found himself facing questions about the cases he took on as a lawyer.
    â€œNo shop talk, Tom,” she told her brother, wedging herself in between her oldest sibling and Keith. “I promised Keith that this afternoon was all about unwinding, not grilling.”
    Slipping her arm through his, she gently led Keith away from the small cluster of guests.
    â€œI take it we’re not leaving yet,” Keith said. To his own surprise, he wasn’t having that bad a time. This experience, forced though it was, was not without its merits.
    â€œSoon,” she murmured, drawing him over to another gathering.
    She repeatedly came to his rescue several more times that afternoon and early evening.
    Contrary to what he thought was happening—that he would stay for a total of sixty minutes, maybe ninety—by the end of his self-imposed time limit, Keith discovered that he was more than amenable to remaining for a little while longer.
    That officially ended as dusk was creeping up out of the Pacific waters, looking to embrace whatever it could in order to remain around.
    At first, Keith had really tried not to take part in the conversations. He thought, after remaining deliberately closed-mouthed once or twice, that would be the end of it.
    However, he had no idea just how unobtrusively persistent Kenzie’s family members—from the oldest member to the youngest—could be when it came to doing something they believed, in their heart of hearts, was the right thing. Apparently, getting him to talk fell under that heading.
    Drawing him out in conversation had been tricky to say the least, but to Keith’s amazement, he was no match for even the youngest of Kenzie’s clan.
    And just like that, he was pulled in.
    Pulled into the conversation and consequently, by and by, pulled into the family dynamic, as well.
    That was how one hour turned into two and two into four. Before he knew it, most of the day had gone by. Moreover, he wasn’t the least bit annoyed by this.
    He liked these unassuming, down-to-earth people even though he initially felt that he had nothing in common with them. But he—and they—had all initially come from a working class mother and father who took on any kind of work to keep their children dressed and fed. That, he discovered, was the American dream to Kenzie’s parents, and they had captured it in the palms of their hands, passing it down to their children.
    And although it was very much against his will at first, when Kenzie’s mother came up to him to exchange a few words later that evening, Keith couldn’t help thinking of his own mother—the way she had once been, not the woman whose burial service he was going to be attending the day after tomorrow.
    With a great deal of effort, Keith shook off the memory. Nothing good would come of going there. He had to remember that—and resist the temptation to do otherwise.
    â€œI think our birthday girl is ready to be taken home, don’t you?” Andrea asked him.
    The little girl was sitting beside him on the sofa, her head lolling to one side. She was obviously asleep and had been